Days, weeks, months roll away in the same toils, the same recreations.  Whatever he may do to drive it away, this apathetic sadness, this sinking of soul, which has already tormented him at different periods, becomes with Selkirk more and more frequent; he cannot conquer it as he did the seals.  His seals, he now regrets.  When they were encamped on the shore, they at least gave him something to look at, an amusement; something lived, moved, near him.

When he finds himself a prey to these fits, which, in his pride, he persists in attributing to transient indisposition, he goes to walk in the mountains, taking with him only his pipe, his Bible, and his spy-glass.

He often pursues his journey as far as the oasis; there, he seats himself at the extremity of the little valley, opposite the sea, from which his eye can traverse its immense extent.  He opens the holy book, and closes it immediately; then, his brow reddening, he seizes his spy-glass, levels it, and remains entire hours measuring the ocean, wave by wave.

What is he looking for there?  He seeks a sail, a sail which shall come to his island and bear him from his desert, from his ennui.  His ennui he can no longer dissimulate; this is the evil of his solitude.

One day, while he was at this spot, the setting sun suddenly illuminated a black point, against which the waves seemed to break in foam, as against the prow of a ship; his eyes become dim, a tremor seizes him.  He looks again—­keeps his glass for a long time fixed on the same object, but the black point does not stir.

‘Another illusion!’ said he to himself; ’it is a reef, a rock which the tide has left bare.’

He wipes the glasses of his spy-glass, he examines again; he seems to see the waves whiten and whirl for a large space around this rock.

’Can it be an island?  If an island, is it inhabited?  I will construct a barque, and if God has pity on me I will reach it.’

At this moment he hears footsteps resound on the dry leaves which the wind has swept into the little valley.  He turns hastily.

It is Marimonda.

Marimonda has no longer her lively and dancing motions; she also seems languid, sad.  At sight of Selkirk, she makes a movement as if to flee; but almost immediately advances a little, and, sorrowful, with bent brow, sits down on a bank not far from him.

Has she then remarked that he is without arms?

On his side, Selkirk who had not met her for a long time, seemed to have forgotten his former aversion.

At all events, is she not the most intelligent being chance has placed near him?  He remembers that, in the ship, she obeyed the voice, the gesture of the captain, and that her tricks amused the whole crew.  This resemblance to the human form, which he at first disliked, now awakens in him ideas of indulgence and peace.  He reproaches himself with having treated her so brutally, when the poor animal, who alone had accompanied him into exile, at first accosted him with a caress.  And now she returns, laying aside all ill-will, forgetting even the wound which she received from him in an impulse of irritation and hatred, of which she was not the object, for which she ought not to be responsible.